Call for Papers: IASA's 2013 Conference in New Orleans

This year’s IASA conference theme, Italian-American Identity Politics, examines the politics of the identifying term “Italian American” from multiple perspectives and in different time periods. The evocation of “Italian American” for political purposes and agendas has a varied history: to combat anti-Italian American discrimination, to rally allegiance to Mussolini’s Fascist regime, or to support feminism, for example.

In addition to various ideological positions, the structures for conjuring and maintaining ethnic identity have also been myriad, including newspapers, the Catholic Church, commercial marketing, voluntary associations, and social media sites.

What are the social conditions in which the ever-changing narratives of collective identity are formulated and perpetuated? How are ethnic symbols and practices mustered and re-invented at the service of “Italian American?” And ultimately, how do competing politics reveal and engender intragroup tensions but possibly also productive dialogue, both of which might re-configure understandings and enactments of the very term “Italian American?”

Suggested paper topics include, but are not limited to, the following: • Who gets to speak for Italian Americans, both within and outside of academia, political and cultural venues • The use of identity politics by community leaders, the press, scholars, and others • The limitations and/or role of public policy in shaping and/or supporting Italian American identities/communities • The self-conscious development and use of cultural and expressive forms of ethnic identity • The co-opting of identity politics by consumerist culture • Resistance to elite notions of Italian-American identity • The role of voluntary organizations in the formation of a politicized and political Italian-American collective identity • Italian Americans as a political entity in electoral politics, in Italy’s voting abroad, in relation to the politics of other countries with an Italian diaspora.

The conference is interdisciplinary and inter-genre in its perspective and thus is open to scholars in different disciplines, creative writers (novelists, poets, and memoirists), and visual and media artists. The conference committee is open to papers not addressing this year’s conference theme.

CONFERENCE: New Orleans Marriott, October 3-5, 2013

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: JUNE 15, 2013. Abstracts for scholarly papers (up to 500 words, plus a note on technical requirements) and a brief, narrative biography should be emailed as attached documents, by June 15, 2013, to iasa2013conf@italianamericanstudies.net to whom other inquiries may also be addressed.

We encourage the submission of organized panels (of no more than three presenters and a chairperson). Submission for a panel must be made by a single individual on behalf of the group, with all the paper titles, abstract narratives, and individual biographies. The conference committee encourages organized panels that are interdisciplinary and inter-genre. All presentations are to last no longer than twenty minutes, including audio and visual illustrations that accompany presentations. An individual can be a paper presenter, a panel chair, a panel discussant, and a roundtable participant but cannot be any one of these more than once, eg., being a presenter and a discussant but not chairing two different panels. Individual paper and panel proposals should include requests for audiovisual equipment (eg., computer projector).

Prospective presenters may expect to be advised of their acceptance or otherwise by August 1, 2013. All presenters, respondents, and discussants must be members in good standing of the Italian American Studies Association by September 15, 2013.